Field of Invention
This invention relates to crop harvesting machines of the type that use rotary cutters to sever standing crops from the field and then condition the cut crop between one or more sets of conditioning rolls before depositing the crop back onto the ground in the form of a windrow or swath and more particularly, it relates to wide cut machines in which the cutting width is greater than the width of a central opening leading to the conditioning rolls such that crop materials cut outboard of the opening is moved inwardly from the outboard cutters.
Description of Related Art
Wide cut rotary harvesters present inherent challenges in getting outboard severed crop materials to flow smoothly and without hesitation in a lateral direction toward the center of the machine before then turning rearwardly and moving through the central discharge opening into the conditioner rolls. Any hesitation on the part of the crop materials as they “turn the corner” and move rearwardly into the conditioner rolls can cause a number of significant problems, both in the quality of the finished windrows and the quality of cutoff being achieved by the rotary cutters. Due to the increased speeds at which rotary harvesters can travel compared to that of sickle-type machines, cutoff, feeding and control problems are exacerbated in rotary machines due to the dramatically increased volume of cut material flowing through the machines.
In one preferred rotary cutter bed design, a group of inboard cutters of the bed are arranged with their axes of rotation directly in front of the conditioner rolls. At least one, and preferably two, additional outboard cutters are provided at each end of the bed and have their axes of rotation located outboard of the conditioning structure. The outboard cutters both rotate in the same direction, with their front extremities moving generally inwardly toward the center of the machine to convey outboard cut materials toward the inboard cutters. Most of the cutters of the inboard group are arranged in oppositely rotating pairs with other cutters of the group such that cut crop materials from the paired cutters in the inboard group are directed straight back into the conditioner rolls in a number of streams.
It is known to use cage feeders attached to the cutters or to the header frame that turn with cutter discs to help feed the crop material cut by the outboard cutters. There is typically a series of cage feeders, so the diameter of each cage feeder is limited to avoid interference with the adjacent feeding cages. The limited diameter at times limits the effectiveness of the inward feeding of crop material. Additionally, in some crops, crop material can wrap around the cage feeders further limiting their effectiveness.